


Let Me Carve a Place to Crawl Inside You

by demonsonthemoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Intimacy, Puppy Play, Self-negative thoughts, Touch-Starved, non-sexual pet play, very slight references to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28092255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsonthemoon/pseuds/demonsonthemoon
Summary: An exploration of Sam Winchester's relationship to physical contact, throughout his lives and several of his relationships.
Relationships: Amelia Richardson/Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Let Me Carve a Place to Crawl Inside You

**Author's Note:**

> I started out wanting to write a puppy play story. Then I got side-tracked. Oops. (Some puppy elements are still there but it's SUPER light.)
> 
> There's a big focus in this fic on season 8 because I had just finished re-watching that when I had the idea for this fic and I am bitter about the treatment Amelia gets both in the show and in some parts of the fandom. Also, Sam's season 8 arc is one I relate to EXTREMELY, especially since suffering from burnout last year.

Sam has always liked physical contact. He didn't think about that too much, because it always brought up memories of his childhood and the fact that physical affection wasn't something he'd really been able to indulge in back then. John Winchester wasn't that kind of father. Dean had tried, though, the best way he knew how. He'd ruffled his hair and bumped his shoulder and taught him how to wrestle, and he always pretended not to notice when Sam huddled up close to him as they watched TV well past their bed-time.

It wasn't something that came naturally to Dean but, for his brother, ha had tried anyway. Sam hadn't been able to indulge, but he'd never been deprived, and he'd learned to live with that well enough.

Then there had been Jess, and that relationship had opened up a whole new world for him. She hadn't been his first girlfriend, but she'd been the first one he'd truly been himself with. She hadn't known everything about his life, hadn't known about hunting or much about his family, but she'd known who Sam was anyway. Who he wanted to be. She'd known a Sam who hadn't alway been about to leave town. That was more than a lot of people could say.

Jess had touched him. She'd hugged him and kissed him and run her fingers through his hair, and she'd laughed about how he was just a big puppy asking to be petted as he nuzzled into her.

And then Sam had left.

And then Jess had died.

And Dean had tried to pick up the pieces of him, but by that point Sam had figured a part of him was rotten to the core and he hadn't been sure he wanted to be made whole again.

A life on the road meant there was little time to enjoy any kind of comfort.

Sam had been back to being always on the verge of elsewhere.

He'd made do. He had Dean, most of the time, and when he didn't he found another body to touch and soothe him, at least for a little while. Hook-ups, mostly. Ruby, when he'd thought his brother was in hell and that he had nothing to prove to anyone anymore.

That had ended well.

And then he hadn't had Dean for a year. He'd thought he'd lost him forever, for good this time, lost him to purgatory and the horrors it contained.

Sam had been so alone back then. Without Dean, without Cas, without Bobby. Still and always without Jess, although that pained had stopped being an open wound and was now just another scar that ached on rainy days.

He'd been so tired, then.

At night, he would lie down in a single bed in a non-descript motel room and curl up on his side. He would wait for the world to stop, withing he didn't have to get up the next day, that there would be no next day to wake up to.

Then he'd hit a dog.

He'd already stopped hunting for a while by then, but the dog finally forced him to stop moving. To stop running. He all but collapsed in the waiting-room chair of the vet clinic, weariness settling deep in his bones and mind.

How do you treat fatigue when you are both afraid to sleep and all too aware that your nightmares can follow you into the daytime ? How do you run from something that is buried in your own mind ?

Sam hadn't found an answer that day. What he'd found was a creature that needed him, a reason to get up in the morning and take care of himself as well as he could. He'd found someone willing to forgive him and offer him physical comfort, even if the latter sometimes came in the form of a lick to the face.

Sam took care of the dog and the dog took care of him. When he culed up in his bed at night, the dog mirrored his position.

And then there had been Amelia.

Amelia, who found him not on the verge of leaving but of settling down.

Amelia, just as adrift as he was, just as desperate to find something to anchor her down. It wasn't a girl that Sam had found that year without Dean. It was a reason to rest. It was a desire to stay alive that, for once, didn't come from the fact that he _had to_.

Amelia touched him in a way Sam recognized from his own past, a way that suggested she couldn't quite believe she was still capable of such gentleness.

Sam let himself be touched like he still believed he could be worthy of this kind of attention.

Amelia had been the one to insist Sam give his dog a name.

On the days when Sam felt most fragile, when he hid his car keys in one of the kitchen drawers because his whole body was vibrating with the urge to leave, Sam buried his face in the crook of Amelia's neck and let her run her hand through his now long hair. She joked that she'd adopted two dogs. Sam reminded her that Riot was technically his, but didn't deny he was hers. He didn't tell her that he truly believed she had saved both their lives.

And then one day she had come home from work with the first early ray of sunlight, exhausted and on edge and with the feeling of blood on her skin despite the gloves she'd been wearing all night, and she had found Sam on the couch with a romance novel in his hands, and she had demanded some puppy cuddles.

Sam had laughed, and he'd blushed a little, but he had also made space for her on the couch, and he had drawn her in until she could lie against his chest, before she'd huffed and changed their position, sitting up straight and drawing _Sam_ onto her lap.

Sam had felt small and quiet and cared for in the best of ways, and when Amelia had started running her fingers through his hair softly, a little whine had escaped from his mouth.

Neither of them had said anything about it, but Amelia had smiled at him knowingly and kept up her petting, and Sam had let his thoughts drift far, far away, further than they had in a very long time, when all of his energy had been focused on staying alive and saving the world.

Then Don had come back.

Sam was very aware that he and Amelia only fit so well because they were both broken in similar ways, both missing what had become their _raison d'être_ and desperate to latch onto someone new, even if they had to mind their jagged edges.

He hadn't lied to her when he'd said that he thought what they had was right and worth fighting for. He really believed that. He loved Amelia as much as he was capable of in that moment. She had saved his life and brought him back to a part of himself he had thought had been lost forever somewhere in Lucifer's cage.

She shouted at him and she complained and she swore, but she also treated him with kindness. She allowed his silences, his secrets, and she gave him a chance to just _be_ , stolen moments away from responsibility, from pressure, from pain.

He loved her as much as he was capable of in that moment but he knew that, compared to Amelia whole, that kind of love wasn't much.

Or maybe he didn't know. Maybe he was just scared to find out.

Sam had never had a relationship that didn't end with him and his partner getting torn away from one another, usually by death, sometimes by distance, always by his involvement in hunting. He had tried to put a stop to all of that once, with Jess, and she had died. He had thought it was a good idea to try with Amelia, because they had both been two people with nothing to lose and so it hadn't seemed like there was anything that could hurt her. But now there was and Sam was terrified of what would happen if they went on together. He was terrified of the moment when their love for each other would no longer be enough, of the moment when they would stop needing one another like they needed air and everything that held them together would fall apart.

They loved each other as much as they could right then, like one loves to drink water in the middle of the desert.

But that wasn't anything to build a life on.

 _Sam_ wasn't anything to build a life on.

So one day he picked up the key hidden in the kitchen drawer, cuddled Riot close one las time, and he left.

Riot had been his dog, but it was to Amelia that he owed his life. She would take good care of him, like she'd taken care of Sam. Like Sam couldn't take care of her.

Closing the door behind himself and climbing into the Impala, Sam had figured that he would be back to picking a direction and driving until his eyes hurt. Picking up a hunt or two on the way when it fell into his lap, but not exactly trying to.

Or maybe he _would_ try again. Maybe he'd rested enough. It wasn't like he really deserved the thoughtless peace he'd found in Amelia's arms. After all he'd done, sacrificing himself to the hunter's life was the least he could do.

And he knew how to do it. He'd done it before. Alone, too. In those months when Dean was dead simply because a god – an archangel, really, but the difference hadn't mattered then – had wanted him to be. He had stripped his life to its barest essentials then, and he had hunted. He had been alone and his body had been aching but he had hunted.

Of course, this time, it hadn't come to that. Because Dean had been there, Dean had found him, and he had splashed himself with holy water and borax just to prove that he was real, and still Sam hadn't been able to look at him as anything other than a miracle.

And then they had hugged each other and all Sam had been able to think about was how much he wanted to just let go, to let Dean take his weight and just rest there for a second, breathing in the stench of sweat mixed with cleaning product.

But he didn't. Because Dean was back and Dean needed him, and there were always more monsters to hunt, more people to save and there was never enough time for Sam to rest and forget himself.

Cas had come back, and that had been good too, because Castiel was his friend, another anchor point in this life that kept throwing him in all directions.

But Sam was so tired. He had thought that the months with Amelia had helped, that maybe it had been enough, but the wound he had inflicted on himself by leaving was still fresh, and Dean's hurt was like salt against it.

So when he cut open a hellhound and let its blood cover his body, he figured _might as well_.

After the second trial, there wasn't any doubt in his mind that he was going to die. And maybe that was for the best. He was so tired. But he could do this one last thing, this one last truly good thing, shut the gates of hell and finally be able to let go, comforted by the knowledge that he would leave the world a better place than he had found it.

Except Dean had stopped him.

Dean had brought him back from that edge and Sam had let himself fall into his arms once again, because he felt alone and he was scared and how could he resist the promise of someone holding on to him ?

And Dean _had_ held onto him. A little roughly, a little self-consciously, but he'd been there, hovering over him and taking care of him, and it had felt _so good_ , to have a hand on his shoulder telling him to take it easy, fingers running through his hair that he half-heartedly swatted away, a grin as a plate of bacon was slid towards him.

It had felt good, until it had started to feel like too much, until it had begun to feel like Dean wasn't just being nice but trying to assuage his guilt. His guilt for what, Sam had no idea, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. He was losing time, whole chunks of days missing from his memory without explanation. Every time he tried to talk to Dean about it, his brother brushed him off, telling him it was nothing. He was constantly worried about his health but _this_ didn't bother him ?

It wasn't right.

And then he finally figured out what was going on. He was forced to, when Crowley invaded his mind to warn him, and Sam managed to cast Gadreel out, and then he was faced with his brother, hovering over him still.

But for once, the hands on his shoulders didn't feel comforting. They felt like brands, like flames of ice burning off his skin.

Sam couldn't trust his own brother anymore, and every touch felt like an added violation. He couldn't feel like himself in his own body, and this was Dean's fault. (It wasn't. Even as every cell in his body rang out in rage and pain, part of him was trying to justify Dean's actions, to forgive him. Because they were brothers, and that was what they did. They tried and they made mistakes and they forgave each other, no matter what. And it wasn't comforting. It didn't help. Sam wanted to be able to feel angry. He knew he had the right to. The fact that he couldn't just made him even more helpless and he wanted to curl into a ball and forget about everything, but he _couldn't_.)

And then Dean died.

And then Dean was gone.

What purpose was there to everything that Sam had felt, to the agony of forgiving his betrayal, if Sam had to lose Dean the moment he felt himself able to trust him again ?

But by then, Sam knew how to live through the pain. He knew how to keep on fighting and he knew how to hunt, and so he hunt for Dean. He didn't care what it took. He didn't care what he had to do. He had tried to do the right thing, once upon a time, what already felt like a lifetime ago, and Dean had stopped him. Somebody was going to have to live with the consequences of that.

At least there was Castiel. Castiel, an angel that had become almost too human. Castiel, who had become a friend. Castiel, who tried to be there for Sam in his grief, whose touch lingered on his clothes, shyly, almost too lightly to be felt.

And Sam wasn't good to him. He wasn't. He was rude and snappish and frustrated, and he shrugged the other man's comfort like he hadn't done in a long time. Like he was back to thinking that he didn't deserve it.

But Castiel forgave him, as he always did. Sam had called him a friend, but in all the ways that counted he was family, and that included being familiar with the Winchesters' shitty way of handling any interpersonal conflicts.

So he forgave him.

And then they got Dean back, whole and human again, even if he was still unstable. They could handle unstable. That's all they had ever been.

All that counted anyway was that they were there for each other.

And Sam learned again. To trust and to let himself be touched. To indulge this simple form of wanting, this harmless need.

And their lives didn't get any easier. He almost let his brother kill him. They unleashed the Darkness. Sam had to face Lucifer again. He had to feel the touch he had come to trust get turned against him, watch Castiel's face turn in a smirk he knew all too well, had to feel that invasion again within his soul.

And then he had to keep going. _Play nice_ , with the _Devil_ , when his mere presence made his skin crawl and made him want to scream. But he did keep going.

And then they got their mom back. And that was... That was another can of worms altogether. Because Sam had never had a mom, not really. He only remembered her from pictures and from stories Dean had told him. And so part of him looked at Mary and saw all that he'd missed, and that part of him wanted to fold himself up until he was small enough to fit inside her arms and _stay there_. Let her chase the monsters hiding inside of his closet.

But there was another part of Sam, the part that had never _needed_ a mom, the part that had had Dean, and Bobby, and Pastor Jim, and his dad on his better days, and the part that had raised _himself_ into a person he was halfway proud of. And that part looked at Mary and saw a woman who was lost, confused, and a lot more broken than she'd been in any of Dean's stories. And yes, she was their mother, but Mary didn't know how to be Sam's mom anymore than he knew how to be her kid, and it hurt.

So he tried. And she tried as well. And they shared a cup of tea and a few lingering touches, on the hand or on the shoulder, but those were never enough to soften the craving inside of Sam. Instead, they just made him realize how easy it could all have been, how much he'd lost by never getting a chance to discover it.

And then they lost her, and they lost Cas, and suddenly there was Jack to care for and he was just _a kid_. Older than he should be, and smarter too, but still just a kid whose only knowledge of family came from before he was born, and Sam couldn't just leave him alone.

But it was hard. Being there for Jack, for this young man who reminded him so much of himself. He wanted to give him everything he'd never had, but it was all _so hard_.

There was a hole inside of him where grief festered, a wound that only ever healed halfway. Hope was growing on the edge of it like flowers through cracks in the sidewalk, and that was what he tried to focus on, but sometimes he just _couldn't_.

And Jack had seen almost nothing of the world, Sam couldn't let him seen how easy it was to be broken by it.

So, one night, he went to Dean's room. He could hear the tinny noise of music coming out of his headphones, and so wasn't surprised when his brother didn't answer his knock. He went inside anyway.

“What?” Dean confusedly asked, pulling his headphones halfway off.

“Nothing. You can put your music back on, I just... I just need...” Sam ran a hand over his face. He was so _tired_. He didn't know how to explain what he wanted, what he needed. He didn't want to have to explain. He didn't want to talk or do anything, just...

Ignoring Dean's confused stare, Sam sat down at the end of his bed. He took off his shoes, then climbed fully in, curling up as small as possible so he would fit on the narrow mattress alongside Dean's legs.

He let himself breathe.

There were a few seconds of silence, and Sam was sure that Dean was still very much confused, but it wasn't his problem any longer. He could just stay here for a while and stop thinking about everything. He was safe.

He felt a hand rest on his shoulders. “Come on Sammy.”

Sam closed his eyes more tightly. He just needed a bit more time. Just a little. He would be fine afterwards, he would leave Dean alone, he just needed a bit more time to put his edges back together, to find a way to see the flowers through the cracks.

“Come on. I'm not kicking you out, just... move up a little.”

Sam didn't reply, but he did uncurl slightly, dragging himself higher up the mattress so he was resting right besides Dean's hips where the other man was sitting up against the headboard.

“Yeah, that's it, that's... good. Just... okay.”

And yeah, Dean was still totally confused, and babbling a little, but he had also rested a hand against Sam's neck, and was softly running his thumb back and forth over his skin, and Sam could keep his eyes closed and keep quiet and just soak in the warmth of this moment for a while and that was...

That was good.

That was enough.


End file.
